


Metaphors Can Be Literal

by 23Murasaki, Stormysongbird



Series: (re)Written!Verse [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Mr. Rayne the mentor, Willow makes bad decisions, set after chapter 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 19:16:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12777681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/23Murasaki/pseuds/23Murasaki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormysongbird/pseuds/Stormysongbird
Summary: Where do you go when the Watcher is drunk, the Technopagan is the problem, and parents are useless? Why to your magic tutor of course! In which Willow believes that people will die and Ethan gives only somewhat sketchy advice.





	Metaphors Can Be Literal

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written by 23Murasaki, beta read, edited and posted by Stormysongbird.

Willow is so, so sure gonna be in so much trouble. She did magic! At her mom! And then she did magic in front of Buffy’s mom! And there’s all kinds of bad that happens when moms find out things they shouldn’t! But Buffy’s mom takes it okay, even though she cries a bit when she finds out Buffy’s the Slayer, and Willow’s own mom doesn’t really… notice. Or maybe she believes the story about earthquakes and resonance the way everyone believes the stories about drugs and gangs and stuff. But if Willow’s mom hears it from Buffy’s mom, because why wouldn’t Buffy’s mom tell?, about the magic and the slaying and the monsters, she’s definitely gonna believe it and then Willow’s going to be in so much trouble. She sort of wishes Xander and Jesse would stay over, but no, she’s all alone while they go do teenage boy things and Buffy and her mom go talk to Giles.

_Besides,_ says a voice in the back of her mind, _Xander and Jesse would throw you under the bus in a heartbeat. They’re not the ones who got everyone into trouble by waving their superpowers around._

She sort of wishes Buffy was there. Buffy’d know what to do. She always does. Buffy’s cool like that.

_Oh, sure,_ says the mind-voice, which is getting more than a bit sassy with her. _Buffy. She couldn’t even keep a secret from her own mom. She couldn’t even rescue Ms. Calendar properly. She let all the bad guys get away._

She tells the voice to shut up, because it’s being a jerk. It’s not Buffy’s fault that there were evil lawyers and the weird British spirit thing. That’s a Giles thing to know, not a Buffy thing to know.

_Well, yeah. Giles is useless too, isn’t he? He’s all pompous and pulling rank all the time and “Willow-don’t-do-that”, but he’s the one who used to summon demons and things to get high. It’s not like you’re doing magic for the fun—you’re trying to help._

Ugh. What she really needs to do is call Mr. Rayne. He’d know how to fix this—he even saved Kendra. Maybe he has a forgetting spell somewhere in his notes, something that could make all the blown-cover stuff go away. Only she’s not supposed to call Mr. Rayne from home, because that really would make with the cover-blowing.

So she curls up on her bed with Mr. Rayne’s jacket on and tries to get a head start on her summer reading. It’s sort of boring, the summer reading, but Willow has a gift for focusing on things and not leaving them until they’re done. It makes her good at school stuff even when it’s boring, so she’s all focus-mode when the phone by her bed rings. She doesn’t really process it at first, then almost falls trying to grab it before her mom could.

_Maybe it’s Mr. Rayne._

“Rosenberg residence, Willow speaking!” she chirps. It’s Buffy.

“Hey, Will. We’ve sort of got a problem.”

“Really?” Oh, oops. She’s not supposed to sound hopeful. “I mean, what happened? Is it your mom? Is she angry? Is Giles angry? Is it monsters? Is–“

“Will, stop.” She stops. The fact that Buffy is talking very quietly occurs to her, in a distant sort of way.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Giles. He–“ Oh, no. Willow thinks of demons. “–He was sort of… really hungover when mom and I went to see him, and they kind of, mom kind of hit him in the face.”

_Go Buffy’s mom!_ says the mind-voice.

“Is he okay? Is your mom okay? Is Ms. Calendar okay?” says Willow.

“I don’t know, yes, and I don’t know because she wasn’t there,” says Buffy. “That’s the problem. Giles was alone and his apartment was a mess and he made mom so angry that she hit him and Ms. Calendar wasn’t there and I think they broke up!”

“What? They can’t break up!” That’s apocalyptic. That’s worse than apocalyptic. Maybe Mr. Rayne has a forgetting spell for that, too. He could do that, right? Make Giles and Ms. Calendar forget they broke up?

“It’s a disaster,” says Buffy. “We saved the world again but it’s a disaster.” They’re silent for a moment, and Willow’s mind is buzzing. She’d been so worried about vampires and monsters that she hadn’t spared a thought for the actual real world. Besides, Giles has always been such a… such an adult.

_But adults don’t always know what they’re doing. They just try to convince everyone they do. You know that. You’ve seen Giles be wrong before._

“We can fix this, right?” Willow says finally. “We can definitely get them back together?”

“Yeah,” says Buffy, but she sounds distracted. “Summer’s the time for romance, right?”

“Oh, it is?” She feels like she’s heard that somewhere before. “Then, it’ll work, right? All symbolic and stuff.”

“Yeah,” says Buffy. “Yeah, for sure. Don’t worry, okay?”

“Okay,” she says. 

———

She sits at home for another hour, finishes the book, and then sneaks out the back door. If she doesn’t do something, she’s going to go completely wacky, so she goes looking for Mr. Rayne. Only it’s a long way to his motel, because that’s on the creepy side of town, and that means Willow has way too much time to think about the ramifications of what her best friend just told her.

Giles and Ms. Calendar broke up. Giles got punched. Giles was drunk. Giles got punched by Buffy’s mom. Giles broke up with Ms. Calendar and was drinking alone at home getting punched by peoples’ moms? Well, only Buffy’s mom. Her mom probably wouldn’t bother going to talk to Giles. She’s got apocalypse brain, a little, probably, but by the time she’s on Mr. Rayne’s doorstep she’s sniffling and really caught up in about how Giles is probably going to die alone because the world doesn’t let anyone be happy and it’s all because Ms. Calendar got kidnapped and possessed. She knocks.

“Who– Oh, hello Willow,” says Mr. Rayne with his usual friendly smile. “I thought you’d be off with your friends today. Do come in.”

And she looks up at him and bursts into tears, because Giles is gonna die and Mr. Rayne lives in a sketchy motel room and life just isn’t fair. 

———-

Mr. Rayne starts by offering her alcohol, which makes her laugh while crying, and then makes her a cup of sweet milk tea and lets her sob on his shoulder for several minutes until she calms down.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asks. She wants to, and also she wants to ask his advice, but what really comes out of her mouth is a strangled sob and:

“They broke up and now Giles is gonna die!” 

“I don’t–“ Mr. Rayne blinks. “Excuse me, what?” She wants to give a coherent answer, she really does. 

“It’s not fair, Giles and Ms. Calendar were happy together and then there were demons and things and Buffy says he got punched and her mom was there and they broke up, and it’s just not fair!” Mr. Rayne takes her by the shoulders gently.

“My dear girl, please try to focus. Are people dying literally or metaphorically? Because we are on a Hellmouth, so you have to be extremely specific with these things.” She sniffles and nods, wiping frantically at her eyes. Mr. Rayne is never gonna see her as a grownup after this, but that feels like a really dumb thing to worry about.

“I think it’s metaphorical, but I don’t know because Buffy says people in love do dangerous things and I don’t want Giles to die but he’s gonna die alone because Ms. Calendar left him.” 

“What exactly happened?” Mr. Rayne asks, looking progressively more concerned. 

“Buffy said–I wasn't there but Buffy said there’s a problem, and her mom, her mom–“ Willow hiccups and buries her face in her hands.

“I’m just… I’ll call him, shall I?” says Mr. Rayne, and oh, she definitely has apocalypse brain because there’s no rule against calling Giles from the home phone. So she sits on the stool while Mr. Rayne punches Giles’s phone number in from memory, waits a moment, then moves the phone away from his ear. “I think Giles is just fine at the moment. He’s just upset.”

“Promise?” she says. 

“How old are you?” He doesn’t say it like he’s being mean, just like he’s asking a question, so she hugs the jacket around her shoulders and says:

“Seventeen now.”

“Right. When Rupert Giles was your age, I saw him punch a vampire’s teeth in. Which you absolutely should ask him about at some point, it’s a funny story.” Mr. Rayne smiles at the memory, and it’s not how he usually smiles. It’s sharp and almost mean. She doesn’t like it. “My point is, he’s not going to die. I promise.”

And then he gives her more tea, and lets her ask slightly incoherent questions about love, which he doesn’t really answer, and forgetting spells, which he does. 

“Those are dangerous,” says Mr. Rayne very seriously. “Tampering with a person’s mind is finicky work—you can't just change one thing, because even one little thing has ramifications.”

“So… so I can’t do them?” she asks helplessly. Mr. Rayne raises his eyebrows. 

“Oh? You’d make them forget their troubles, then?” Willow nods, because yes exactly, that’s it exactly.

“If they forget it, they’ll be happy again, won’t they?” she asks. Mr. Rayne looks at for a long moment, then smiles that weird smile. 

“Yes, so they will,” he says. “You’re a very kind girl, Willow. Your friends are lucky to have someone like you watching their back.”

“But I can’t help them with a forgetting spell now,” she says. Mr. Rayne shakes his head. 

“Not now, no. You’re gifted, but this requires more than raw power. Research, for one thing!” She perks up. Research she can do, more than finicky spellwork. “Now,” says Mr. Rayne, “All the most effecting memory altering spells I have seen have their roots in Greek, so if you’re serious about this I will have to give you summer homework…”

“That’s okay!” Willow blurts. “I like homework! And magic! So magic homework is probably … fun?” Mr. Rayne laughs.

“You know, I think it is too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first in our sort of "US Thanksgiving week" installments. The second one is in the process of being prepared. Don't worry it's plenty of Ethan to keep y'all entertained!


End file.
